Buddhist Treasures in the Chicago Art Institute

The magnificent Art Institute is one of the many surprises of a trip to Chicago.  The first-time visitor is bound to be immediately impressed with the depth of the early modern western art collection, with major paintings by all the impressionists as well as masters of the early-20th century.  Major works lie in the less visited Asian and Ancient arts collections downstairs.  The Chinese works are mainly Buddhist and of the highest calibre.  

The Avalokitesvara bodhisattva figure pictured immediately above, most likely from the Sui dynasty, c. 580 CE, is a beautifully preserved piece willed with intimate details of perfection.  The supple tilt of the slight torso is a clear indication of the feminizing direction taken by later Guanyin pieces.  The complex folds of the garment are clear but flattened to the body, without appearing to be a separate.  The belt and necklace jewelry are extremely detailed, without being overwhelming.  And the calm facial expression, an almost-smile, adds a sense of absolute confidence.  Here we are faced with a being of the world, enveloped by treasure and wealth, who retains an inner knowledge of something more.

The second piece featured above, a Maitreya (Buddha of the Future) made in the same period (CE 560) but in another state, the Northern Wei, shows sharply different styling.  Once again the clothing is flat against the body, simply following the body's simple curves.  But this deity wears no expensive jewelry; the belt, hat and jacket probably mirror the attire of the literati of the period.  Most interestingly, the right foot, folded in lotus in the figure's lap, is flat and lacks its own sculptural space.  The foot is another piece of the garment, apparently.

The extant hand, of course, is separate, but the palm is virtually flat.

It is in the neck and face that the piece's beauty resides.  the slender, long neck supports a face of surprising individuality.  Here is a deity with character and attitude, almost inviting each of us to join him in the game of Buddhist cultivation.  One is tempted to ask him questions about the future.  There is something comforting and familiar in this look, the sense that you've seen this look somewhere, you know it.  Undoubtedly, this is an effect no artist can create consciously.  

Dufu's Thatched Hut, Chengdu, Sichuan, China

Dufu (712-770) was one of China's greatest poets.  Born in Jingling (modern Nanjing), he spent most of his life wandering throughout northern and western parts of the great Tang empire.  During one period he retired to Chengdu and took up residence in a simple hut on the grounds of a temple.  Here he produced over 200 poems, some of the most classic works of Chinese literature.

The purported site of Dufu's residence on the western side of Chengdu is today a major tourist site.  The grounds are filled with ponds and paths between camphor and gingko trees.  The single-story buildings interspersed throughout blend well.  It takes nearly two hours to walk all the trails, including lingering in some of the buildings.  The experience is a welcome, cooling break from the city traffic.

Gruene Texas

A one-horse town that was once prosperous and is today a dusty tourist joint, Gruene (pronounced “green”), Texas, has seen better days.  In the flapper era it bubbled with slackers and slicksters, farmers in overalls and plough salesmen in suits.  You can hear the model-T’s and horses barreling into town to resupply with food and catch up on gossip at the Gruene Mercantile.  H.D. Gruene looked around at the cotton fields he planted, at the tenant farmers streaming in, at the bales hauled off by rail to San Anton, and felt justified in building up the place, investing here in a bank, a feed store, then a post office and a finally a spanking new post office building.  This town would be a permanent monument to his foresight and hard work.

It came as a bitter shock when the boll weevil invasion decimated the cotton crop and farming ceased to be viable, in the 1920s.  Suddenly the town became a backwater.  Old man Gruene died in 1920, and his son stayed on, managing things through the Depression.  Must have been sad for him to watch the town move in slow-motion, haunted by the memories of the place’s former bustle.

Gruene, Texas, is today preserved as a nostalgia series of storefronts not far from I-35 between San Antonio and Austin.  But the decision to preserve the old buildings, to redo some, has allowed a new identity to seep into the tired structures.  Far from being only a Disneyesque nostalgia parking lot, Gruene  today has transformed itself into an art town, centered on the tourists traveling through, yes, but also able to keep four or five bed-and-breakfasts and around ten local artists going year-round.  And able to keep the star attraction, the Gruene Dance Hall, famous in a region famed for music venues.  Willie Nelson and a host of country stars play here regularly, and the sense of authenticity is unmistakable when you step in the Dancehall’s crooked doorway.  Gruene has come back to life, transformed but coursing with fire and venom.

iClub Wanchai

With Hong Kong in the grip of another anorexic binge of economic gorging, reasonable hotel space is hard to come by.  Evicted suddenly by my own domestic troubles one night I discovered a rare find, a reasonable three-star.   

The iClub Hotel on 211 Johnston Rd. in the heart of Wanchai is a true find.  Its nineteen floors hold 99 rooms.  It’s a Regal Hotel, so management is careful to offer exactly what they want to:  a minimum of service.  This is fine as long as their expectations are met.

iClub does not disappoint.  The lobby is simply a desk, with two staff and two computers.  The twin elevators are tiny, fitting maybe 4 or 5.  The halls are white, bright and hospital-like.  My first indication of more-than-expected-results was the carpet:  off-white, rich and densely woven, it was immaculate and unlike countless cheap hotel carpets in China had no stains or cigarette burns, and you could not feel the uneven concrete floor beneath the carpet.

Finally, the room:  A large room with everything you would need, plus a new, hard bed and German down blanket.  Everything done in minimalist white, with clear glass tables and glass walls showing every action taking place within the bathroom.  That seems to be what people expect of minimalism today:  voyeurism.

The rooms all have free wifi, safes, ironing boards, and cable TV.  The rooms are, in a nutshell, fabulous.

Big drawback?  The breakfast lounge.  The hotel emphasizes it is a “simple” breakfast.  The reality is it is underwhelming.  The lounge has five or six tables and a laughable buffet with cereal and a few bananas.  They would be better advised to simply provide coffee.

The lounge is functional, however:  Its two free computers are useful for occasional use, and the lounge is a great place to meet someone for a quick talk.

Overall, I liked this place so much I hesitate to share it with anyone.  Yet I know it’s only a mater of time before prices there will match those of other chains.  How long before word of good deals gets out?  Six months?  Two?  Right.

Temples and Churches of Old Macao

The Macao peninsula hangs, dried-up and world-weary, from China’s massive underbelly.  The streets running down either side of the peninsula are separated by only a few kilometers; the entire territory, now a Special Administrative Zone in China, runs to only 29 square kilometers.  The old clogged residential streets between Macao’s harbor and the China border get little attention from casual visitors.  Most visitors, after all, come to gamble, and gamble seriously.  Make no bones about it, Macao’s mission in life is to entice gamblers to visit and leave their money on the tables.

But all is not glitz and casino chips.  The other side of Macao is a cultural cul-de-sac preserving practices and lifestyles not seen anywhere else, including the big brother on the other side of the Pearl River estuary, Hong Kong, which through its size (1000 square kilometers), wealth, deep harbor, fame and overall bossiness usually overshadows tiny Macao.  For most of the gambling-addled visitors from Hong Kong and China, Macao means one thing only.  Such obsession mean the rest of the surprisingly well-preserved place is passed over like a ghost town.  Our gain.

I have lived in Hong Kong for a quarter of a century, but showed little interest in our tiny neighbor.  It was, I assumed, no more than a run-down, crowded web of smoky casinos and three-star hotels.  Even after the big guns like Wynn and Sands and Venetian built new Vega-copies there, I showed no interest; it seemed so derivative.  Only when I began to compile a Directory of Religious Institutions in Macao did I realize how wrong I was to dismiss the city.  In visiting the temples and churches there I have inadvertently stumbled upon a soft, welcoming side of Chinese culture.

At the heart of the peninsula sits St. Paul’s Cathedral, or at least the hulking southern façade remaining after the cathedral burned to the ground in 1835.  St. Paul’s is placed on a rise, above a grand stone staircase.  St. Paul’s is the end-point of the central tourist circuit, a winding cobblestone pedestrian pathway extending from the Senado (legislature) Square.  Travelers make the rounds from Senado to St. Paul’s, stopping in touristy stores and smallish restaurants. Today’s tourists are mainly from Mainland China, eager to snap photos with the 16^th century European stone façade as backdrop.  

Let us climb past the tourists, up the face of St. Paul’s, to perch at the pointed middle, clutching the cross there.  From here we can survey all of old Macao, and even make our way like a sure-footed King Kong through the clogged streets below.

Snuggled right next to St. Paul’s, at our feet, is a tiny Na Tcha (Mandarin Na Zha) temple, a one-room sacred site managed by two women from the same family.  Na Zha worship is strong in Macao, with a larger relative temple nestled in the side streets below St. Paul’s.  The deity Na Zha is traced back to a historical figure of the Shang dynasty (1600-1046 BC).  Like most single-deity community temples, the temple hosts a citywide celebration and procession through the streets of the city once a year, ending in Senado Square.

Directly behind St. Paul’s the Largo de Companha cuts east west across the center of the peninsula, separating the mainly residential north from the mainly commercial south.  Streets gradually slope down from this road.  Just to the north and slightly toward the west lies the Church of St. Andrew and, across the street, two sites unique to Macao:  The Jardim De Luis De Camoes (garden of Luis de Camoes) and the Protestant Cemetery.  

The shady Garden would not be out of place in any southern European town.  It commemorates Luis De Camoes (1524?-1580), Portugal’s poet of empire, who wrote much of his masterpiece Os Lusíadas ("The Lusiads") while serving as chief warrant officer in Macao.  In the park’s open space are found cobblestone mosaics inlaid with colorful scenes of sailing ships from the era of European expansion.  The mosaic stones are arranged to illustrate chapters from Lusiadas.  Stand still and one can faint hear Camoes intone:  “What kings, what heroes of my native land, Thunder’d on Asia’s and on Afric’s strand…?”

As with so much of interest in Macao the Protestant Cemetery is almost hidden from view.  To get there you walk past the tiny Protestant church off one side of the Cameos Garden, down a slope until the sunken rectangular field of grass and gravestones reveals itself.  The cemetery was established in 1841, just prior to the first Anglo-Chinese Opium War.  Macao at that time was filled with European and American traders and sailors.  Their stories are revealed in their epitaphs.  One informs us that “Under this lieth the body of Mr. Samuel Proctor of Boston, a young gentleman much esteemed and regretted by all who knew him, who departed this life AT MACOA January the 12, 1792, aged 21 years.”  Another American was Benjamon R. Leach of Salem, Massachusets, who died in Macao in 1838.  “He was long the active and intelligent Agent in India of Messrs. Neal & Co. of Salem Mass., USA, who have caused this Monument to be erected over his Grave.”

There must be no more than forty or fifty souls buried in this pristine corner of this overlooked city, undoubtedly enjoying more elbowroom than do most living Macanese.  (Macao’s population density of 48,248/square kilometer is the highest in the world.)   Among those at rest here the most famous by far is Robert Morrison (1782-1834), the first Protestant missionary to China.   Sent to China by the London Missionary Society in 1807, Morrison spent the remainder of his life working on translations and cultivating the first few Protestant Chinese converts to what is today a thriving Chinese faith.

Back on our perch on St. Paul’s, we notice more Catholic churches dominating the visible religious topography.  To the northeast is the 1960s-era Saint Joseph the Worker’s Church.  Sited on Avenida de Longevidade in the center of Macao’s industrial district—chunky blocks of ugly industrial high-rises, many now empty or used only as warehouses--this church feels like a ship adrift.  

It serves a community, though, that is clear, with a busy reception area and offices downstairs.  Upstairs the church proper is immaculate.  And on the walls, once again, mosaics, here fourteen vast pastel-colored works originally designed by the Italian artist Guiseppe Francavilla, depicting Biblical scenes from the birth of Adam to the Resurrection.  But who does this church serve?  With the decline of industry in Macao in the 1990s the church’s focus switched to caring for newly arrived immigrants from China.  Often poor and dependent on welfare, they respond well to the message of St. Joseph, father of Jesus and patron saint of China.

Moving west, toward Macao’s northwest quadrant, we find the Lin Feng Temple, a community temple in the folk tradition.  Such community temples typically house images of many deities, each covering a separate area of specialization.  

This temple was first built around 1600 to commemorate the goddess Tian Hou.  Over the years additional halls housing other deities were added, including Guan Yin, Guan Di (Guan Gong), the Earth God, and the City God. Its well-maintained halls reflect the continued potency of its gods; worshippers will continue to go as long as their prayers are answered and they get results.  Chinese religiosity has a clear practical bent.       

Sitting on the temple grounds is a museum dedicated to Lin Ze, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) commissioner who stood up to the British by confiscating and destroying opium shipments, precipitating the Opium Wars.  Lin is today depicted as a hero in China.  Think of the museum as an official expression of Chinese nationalism.  Inside are copies of unequal treaties signed by European powers and China, plus some explanation of the inequities of the opium trade.  Most revealingly, contemporary photos of Chinese and Macanese government officials take up half the wall space.  This little museum is a reminder:  Macao belongs to China!

To the south of Lin Feng lie three additional traditional temples.   The largest of these is the Kun Iam (Guan Yin) Temple, a well-maintained Buddhist community temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Guan Yin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy.  This temple was built in 1627 on a site occupied by other temples since the 1200s.  In 1844 the first peace treaty between the United States and China, the Treaty of Peace, Amity, and Commerce, with tariff of duties, was signed by U.S. envoy Caleb Cushing and the Chinese government envoy inside Kun Iam; the stone table used for the signing is still in the temple.  Not two blocks down Avenido do Coronel Mesquita lies another equally old gem of a temple, the Kun Iam Tchai (Guanyinzai, “Little Guan Yin”) Temple.  This temple is not strictly Buddhist at all, although one chamber houses a Guan Yin image.  Instead it is a hybrid popular religion temple similar to the Lin Feng, housing a range of community deities, all of which are paraded in a ceremonial circuit on major festival days.

The third temple, further inside the network of square streets opposite the two Kun Iam temples, is a real treasure of popular Chinese religion:  Lin Kai (Lotus Stream) Temple.  Its date of construction is unknown, but we do know it was rebuilt in 1830, so once again here is a cultural site from the Portuguese period.  Inside, the rooms are tiny, like so many buildings in Macao, yet this temple complex contains a depth of cultural meaning.  Granite sculptured panels depicting landscape and religious figures are inlaid into the front wall.  

Production of such cared stone panels centered in Guangzhou flourished through the nineteenth century.  Inside, fifteen major deity figures fill the temple, from Guan Yin to Guan Gong, the red-faced god of wealth and learning.  One room in particular houses finely carved figures of the eighteen lohans, traditional objects of devotion in Chinese Buddhism.  The eighteen lohans are monks deep in various stages of meditation practice; they remind petitioners to rededicate themselves to devotion and discipline.  Walk through the lohan hall into the next and you find an unexpected counterpoint to the overly-serious monks:  a room housing twelve or so female figurines roughly sculpted in softer clay and painted brightly.  Presiding over all as central deity is Jinhua Niangniang (roughly, “Granny Golden Flower”), a female deity worshipped throughout southern China as a childbearing facilitator.  

The female figures arrayed on either side of the room reflect a range of women’s roles in traditional Chinese society, often involving caring for children in childbirth and sickness.  The message here:  you can petition gods to cover the practical concerns of daily life as well as the divine.

Turning back toward the heart of the peninsula, still lingering over the maze of scooter-clogged side streets north of St. Paul’s, one more large site awaits:  the cemetery and church of St. Michael.  In contrast to the gloomy and isolated Protestant Cemetery, this bright and vast Catholic cemetery sits on a gentle hill surrounded by thousands of ornate gravesites.  The Cultural Institute and Central Library lie across the street on Rio de Volong.  

Back to our perch atop St. Paul’s, there are two remaining sectors of the peninsula to cover.  To the southeast stretches the ferry terminal, the jai alai tournament hall, Macau’s Fisherman’s Wharf (a Disney-like town filled with luxury good retail shops, as well as a faux volcano), and the beginning of the real glitz—first the Sands, then the MGM Grand, followed by the Lisboa, a monstrous, vaguely fleur de lis-shaped skyscraper—taking it all in one glance, the awed visitor is confronted by a massive cliff of glass and cement.  

There is one religious site here, the Kun Iam image rising 20 meters high on a small pedestal off the coast.  Unlike embedded community temples, this statue has little to do with a community of worship, and was built simply to promote tourism.

The city’s southeast section tells a different story.  Macao’s beautiful coast road, here christened Avenido Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, leaves the overwhelming shadow of the Lisboa casino, curves past the old governor’s mansion, and rounds Barra Hill before sliding up the western side of the peninsula.  The Barra Hill area houses two of Macao’s oldest religious sites.  At the base of the hill is A-Ma temple, probably Macau’s oldest and certainly its namesake.  A-Ma is a colloquial term for Tian Hou, aka Mazu, sometimes called the Goddess of the Sea, a female deity worshipped fervently along the southern coast of China.  The temple was built in 1448, and so predates the arrival of the Portuguese, who first showed up in 1535.

A-Ma is a major devotional site to this day, although as we have seen she is worshipped in such other temples as Tian Feng.  But the real treasure on Barra Hill is the Our Lady of Pena Church, built in 1622.  This site easily wins the fengshui award.  

On a clear day it offers full views of the harbor, today so shallow it resembles a sandbar.  And the church itself, connected to a Trappistine nunnery, is a vertical breath of stillness--just what the soul needs after a rough day of blackjack.

The blackjackers, alas, are rarely seen in our travels.  Instead in our religious site visits we most likely share the sacred precincts with the occasional tourists, the devout, and the grounds keepers.  Groundkeepers fall into two groups, community volunteers and private operators.  Most temples and churches operating today are centers of living communities.  But another organizational form survives, the temple owned by a family and passed down through generations.  And in cramped Macau you never know when you will run across a family temple.

With a final hour in left to tour the city I walk east from St. Paul’s on Largo de Companha.  I come to the ochre walls of Pao Kung Temple just in time to watch its gates close at 5:30.  I linger, angry at being cut off from the temple.  I turn and walk aimlessly down a side street, where by chance I see another sign, a temple name, Huangcao Erxian (“the two immortals Huang and Cao”).  I enter the open door, expecting to find it too ready to close.  Instead I meet a Pilipino maid and an elderly Chinese woman.  

They invite me upstairs to the main worship hall.  There I see a masterpiece of carved ebony and rosewood in the tradition of intricate carvings unique to southern China.  At least ten deities are housed in the massive wood altar.  The woman, with a well-permed head of gray hair, lives simply with her maid in a small room to the side of the main altar room, her sole occupation caring for the temple and its deity images, as her family has done for centuries.  Her passion for the temple, I feel, is quiet yet intense.

Religion’s roots, I realize, run deep in Macao, and in all directions, touching social life, the family, and the economy equally, in a relaxed, welcoming style I now see as uniquely Macanese.  Closing my eyes I can easily imagine returning to Barra Hill to gaze silently at the harbor, watched over by St. Mary or, perhaps, Tian Hou, or both, awaiting the arrival of De Camoes’ next flotilla.

Mayfield Park, Austin

Breath in that central Texas dry. Follow your nose down to the cool
waters of the Colorado. Sandstone and dust bake in the sun, too worn
out to move. The air is full of sunlight and shade. Grey trees twist in
every direction, lampposts of the desert.

The Doorman

Our Hong Kong high-rise has a doorman.  His main job is to get taxis for impatient residents and register suspicious visitors, and to do it all with a smile.  Like a harried laboratory rabbit he responds instantly to sounds:  the ringing of elevator doors about to burst open, the tromp of feet up the stairs, the crackle of the walkie-talkie used to call taxis, the swoosh of handbags and silk when a cackle of resident tai-tai's bustles by. Without his ears he would be blind.

Menace and Mystique: Street Crime in Shenzhen

Wong walked into the underpass in a rush. The pedestrian subway was the only way to cross Shennan Road from the subway station.  The subway was not air conditioned, and the air was stifling.  Sweat trickled down his back into his waistband.  Still he hurried—he was running late.

As he walked down the stairs into the corridor he checked his cellphone for messages, scrolling down the emails.  Two calls had come in while he was on the train, neither urgent.  He walked briskly across the central corridor that ran under the road above, dodging a few students in uniform and a housewife carrying a shopping bag.  He turned left at the end of the underpass and walked toward the sunlight streaming in from the exit.  He planned to take the stairs two at a time to save time. 

Suddenly he found himself in a knot of people bunched on the stairs.  Someone right in front of him, a burly guy with a crew-cut, was talking on his cellphone, waving his right arm widely as he made his point.  Wong also sensed some people coming down the stairs opposite look at him strangely.  He tried to shuffle off to the side but found himself stuck in the tiny crowd.  Then a tiny point of awareness flared up:  he was being cornered.  At the same time he felt a slight pressure in his pocket.  Moving his hands down he felt inside and realized his loose cash had disappeared.  He stopped on the stairs to check, feeling foolish, with a thousand images rapidly playing through his mind.  By this time the crowd had melted away.  His true situation then sank in:  he had been pickpocketed.

A Special Reputation

Street crimes such as this happen in all cities.  But cities like Shenzhen are special, building up a knotty reputation for street crime, a crime mystique.  Just how bad is it?  Let’s see.

We could first check police statistics.  But in Shenzhen these reveal little.  In China, in most places, the police operate in their own universe with their own game rules.  In the Shenzhen police rulebook stability comes first, self-interest second, and beyond that, you pay as you go.  Social stability will be maintained, if only to avoid scrutiny from senior government leaders.  No one wants the full weight of the province or, heaven forbid, the central government, to descend anywhere nearby, so, no major or serious crimes, and no social unrest.  In all such instances the police will act resolutely to quash crime.

Second rule, the police act to protect their own.  This means they control their fate, to avoid being blindsided by events.  It also means they look for opportunity to earn money and protect their own.  Connect with street crime groups and cooperate with them.  Ask them to serve up sacrificial lambs when necessary.  And lean on them enough to get a reasonable cut in any income.  Street crime is fully allowed, as long as it does not escalate.

Third rule, individuals can negotiate for services on a pay-as-you-go basis.  Of course the police can serve, for the right price.  If a crime is serious enough, or an individual wants certain revenge, police services are available. 

Such policies are common in many places.  In China’s border regions they are widely known, if not liked.  The police write the rules.  Their actions mirror those of criminals, and they often work in tandem.  All these unfortunate facts reflect Shenzhen’s status as a border city. 

Shenzhen:  Border Magnet

Shenzhen is home to nine million busy, money-obsessed, souls, many of them low-paid migrants fresh from the countryside.  Economic growth has been outstanding and incredible, averaging 10.5% per year over the past 20 years.  Shenzhen in fact is the poster child for the era of economic liberalization brought on by Deng Xiaoping from 1979.  He accomplished something great in dragging those four hundred million peasants out of abject poverty, and at least on the surface he did all this by starting in Shenzhen, ground zero for the miracle.  His highly publicized trip to Shenzhen in 1989, immediately after the Tiananmen incident, highlighted his resolve in moving forward with economic reform

Shenzhen as a result of all this is an anomaly:  located in the Pearl

River Delta, that mishmash of rivers and canals anchored by Hong Kong and Guangzhou, it should by rights be simply a traditional town in one of the heartlands of Chinese culture.  Instead Shenzhen has the character of a border city, filled with gunslingers, pirates and low-lifes.  Shenzhen is the Wild West.

Some crime, then, is to be expected.  What we find though is an exaggerated reputation for getting robbed, or hurt.  This fear is greatest among Hong Kong visitors.

Crime in Shenzhen:  Fact and Legend

Shenzhen and Hong Kong are joined at the hip, two sister cities joined at the hip, each reflecting the other.  Shenzhen was always the Hong Kong’s playground, where people came to eat, drink, and play.  It was thus a magnet for criminal elements.  Throughout the 1990s and 2000s Hong Kong papers and TV channels were filled with accounts of people getting ripped off over the border.  Even more importantly, urban legends circulated wildly.  Shenzhen had, by 2005, a huge image problem.

One TV expose from 2002 focused on individual Hong Kong people travelling to Hong Kong.  One visitor, Mr. Hong, was walking through a pedestrian underpass one day, in broad daylight, when he was suddenly surrounded by five or six men.  He was pushed against a wall and threatened.  He lost two cell phones and a watch and was cut by a long knife, requiring ten stitches in his thigh.

Another visitor, Mr. Cai, was tricked up to a room by a woman--at least that was his account.  Four men then burst in, saying “we just want money, you will be unharmed if you cooperate.”  They handcuffed him and held him at knifepoint.  Cai also noted they were snorting drugs.  They were not happy with the small amount of cash he had, and they took his two credit cards.  They warned him that if the passwords did not work they would come back to kill him.  “My legs melted when I heard that threat,” said Cai.  The reporter later confirmed that banks take no responsibility in cases where passwords are lost or used by criminals.  The lesson from this case:  don’t take your credit cards to China.

Fear of going to China actually led many Hong Kong people to avoid going there altogether.  The most fearsome stories involved jewelry or body organs.  The stories about jewelry highlighted the value of pieces that would be viewed as commonplace or not so valuable in Hong Kong but were seen by people “over the border” as extremely valuable.  Thomas So went to a nightclub in Shenzhen in the early 1990s.  He was spotted there wearing a gold necklace, which clearly stood out around his neck when he was on the dance floor.  Gangsters followed him out of the nightclub, accosted him, and when he struggled killed him, all for a necklace.  Similar stories involved gangsters, often riding up on motorcycles, grabbing tourists’ arms and severing a digit simply to get a gold ring.

Body parts stories plugged into the growing lore about the international trade in organs.  These stories circulate in many parts of the world, usually in relatively poor places where people may become desperate.  In the Shenzhen version they always involved a desperate protagonist kidnapping, drugging, and finally operating on an unsuspecting passenger from wealthy Hong Kong, resulting in the passenger waking up without a kidney.  The assumption here is that the kidney of someone from Hong Kong would somehow be superior to those from anyone else in China, perhaps having been fattened by a rich diet of western milk and fast food. 

The most outrageous of the urban legends stories involved taxi drivers in China.  Evidently every taxi driver took his life in his hands when working in China.  Often poor migrants from inland provinces such as Hunan or Sichuan would threaten drivers with knives, force the drivers to hand over all cash, and then offing them and dumping the body and car outside a town.  Why would they kill the drivers, often for small amounts of cash?  Because the drivers had seen their faces and could easily identify them.  Some time around 1990 taxi companies in China began to build metal and plastic barriers between the driver’s seat and the shotgun and back seat.  These were said to be protect the drivers against knife attacks.  These barriers simply fueled stories of danger among Hong Kong visitors. 

In a similar traffic-oriented vein, long-distance bus companies in China began filming bus passengers with hand-held CD cameras before bus journeys, so the police would have a video record of all customers who boarded the bus.  This reflected the widespread practice of criminals boarding and holding up passengers at knifepoint once a journey had started. 

Such incidents no doubt did take place in Shenzhen and surrounding towns.  But as folklore they took on lives of their own and were amplified into a general perception of danger and lawlessness.  Shenzhen was simply not safe, it was felt, and you went there at your own risk.

Encounters on the Streets

My company moved operations to Shenzhen from Hong Kong in 1997, and by 2003 had transferred almost all Hong Kong positions to Shenzhen.  We made a major commitment to Shenzhen.  That made it tough when some staff refused to go.  Upon questioning it became clear these stories of fear and loss over the border had influenced their thinking, at least in part.  In some cases the staff chose to give up their jobs rather than make the move.

While there was a tendency for the stories to take on lives of their own, some of the stories undoubtedly had some foundation.  One story we knew well was a supplier’s staff being murdered, right under everyone’s noses.  Ling had been a loyal assistant in Chan’s office for years, and we all knew her because we could get reliable figures from her.  She was short, cute, and energetic.  Evidently she also had a relationship with Chan, but that was not widely known then.  Regardless, one day she announced she was ready to move on and leave the company.  Chan planned to give her a sizeable leaving bonus.  Word of the bonus got out and was widely discussed in the factory.  One day just before she was scheduled to leave she was cooking lunch and heard someone knock on the door, downstairs.  She went to check, upon which a man rushed in and grabbed her neck.  He probably pushed her to give him money, but he pressed too hard and she died on the spot.  Chan, upstairs waiting for his lunch, came down to check, found her body, and rushed out calling for help.  Miraculously, two policemen were on patrol nearby.  They rushed out to find the perpetrator and immediately stumbled on him.  They beat him with their nightsticks.  As it turned out the perpetrator was none other than the factory’s production manager.  His motivation:  greed, and anger.

So these things actually happened.  However I personally had never had experience crime over the border, until three years ago.  At that point I joined the list of victims.

The first incident occurred as I descended an escalator into the subway system on Shennan Road, in the heart of Shenzhen.  It was evening and the subway was not crowded.  I stood on the escalator.  Suddenly I became aware of a presence behind me. I turned and found a man with his hand in my pocket.  I was incensed.  As we neared the bottom of the escalator I grabbed his wrist.  “You are stealing my things,” I said, loudly.  The young man, student-age, looked startled and confused.  He twisted away from me, and as we had reached the bottom I needed to turn to catch my footing.  Just at that time another man coming down the escalator bumped into us.  By this time the first man had run off. 

While this played out I noticed another man coming toward me in the pedestrian subway, and it unsettled me.  He observed us closely as he spoke on his cellphone.  When I considered giving chase, it appeared the third man was ready to chase me also.  It smelled like there were several involved, and anyway I had not lost anything.  So I reconsidered my plans to give chase and stopped.

The pickpockets in Shenzhen, I was learning, worked in gangs.  The lead pick is surrounded by facilitators, guards, and mentors.  In my case the man behind was most probably a guard, ready to help in case of a physical confrontation.  And the man coming in the opposite direction, eyes glued to me, was no doubt a handler or mentor, tracking of the situation. 

I was later targeted again in that same pedestrian crossing, and as it turned out by the same gang.  This time I was surrounded by three or four in a midday-rush up a busy stairway.  I felt something in my pocket, something very slight, and reached down to feel it.  I felt wood.  I grabbed it and twisted around.  To my surprise I faced the same young guy who had targeted me before.  And once again he showed real shock, no doubt because he too recognized me.  He was clutching a super-sized bamboo tweezer, made from flattened, polished bamboo, the kind often used in Chinese food markets to pick up fresh food and hand it to customers.  These are twice as long as chopsticks yet afford an extremely strong grip—the perfect tool for reaching deep into someone’s pocket and extracting things.  When not in use the entire piece can be concealed up someone’s sleeve.

This time I did not show anger.  Instead I played along, saying nothing, as he feigned annoyance at my having grabbed his possession.  I let him and his friends pass up the stairs, grateful the incident did not accelerate.

The risk on the streets of Shenzhen is real, however, and the more you walk those streets the sooner you come to your day of reckoning.  Mine came soon enough.  I was walking down a shopping street in the afternoon.  Lined with small shops, it was one of those side streets that spring to life at dusk, when workers come out for dinner, but during the day is quiet.  Once again I was engaged in conversation with my companions, and felt no particular danger, since it was hot and the streets were not busy.  However at one point I did feel that now increasingly familiar light presence in my right front pocket, and I reached down to check my bills.  I then became aware of a young man standing right behind, close enough to touch but appearing disinterested.  I simply spun to my right, making it impossible for anyone to grab anything, and I ended up facing front again.  I felt pretty good about this slick move:  I had foiled another attempt, without any incident or confrontation.

Within 60 seconds that was about to change.  I felt once again the pressure of fingers in my pocket.  This time I swung around to my left and saw another guy actually holding the wad of bills taken from my pocket.  Anger and instinct took over once again.  I grabbed his wrist.  The bills fell to the ground in a pile.  I looked straight in his eyes and saw once again that look of surprise and fear.  Still holding his wrist with my left hand I knelt down and tried to pick up my money with the right.  It was then I raised my face and saw a flashing point of light.  The gleam from the afternoon sun silhouetted his head with harsh light, making it hard to make anything out, but it was clear he brandished something and his left arm was cocked, ready to bring it down any minute.  It was a monstrous ice-pick, certainly several chopsticks long, made from stainless steel, absolutely blood-curdling.  My attacker actually plunged it forward slightly, as if to warn me off.  In a flash my anger was replaced by and terror.  I stood up partially, holding my own arm over my head, with red and green bills flying to the right and left.  By standing up I also made him lose his balance.  He fell back, still menacing with the bright point of steel.  I let go of his wrist.  He took two steps back, turned, and disappeared into a nearby storefront.

My heart beat rapidly.  I quickly gathered up my things and stood, expectantly.  I eventually walked on with my friends, but kept checking over my shoulder a few times.  The sense of imminent danger is a hard feeling to shake.

It’s the sense of danger you carry with you.  And that extra awareness of living and working with danger changes you.  You become hyper-aware, vigilance built into every waking moment.  Yes, the streets of Shenzhen are dangerous, dangerous in a unique way because of its border identity, but that danger lives alongside attraction.  Danger is, it seems, something you can live with.